“Yes. I’m glad they’ve finally decided to clean them,” the nurse answered．She looked at Mum strangely and said, “But aren’t you working late?”

    Mum just pushed harder, each swipe (拖) of the mop taking her farther and farther down the hall. I watched until she was out of sight and the nurse had turned back to writing in the big book.

    After a long time Mum came back. Her eyes were shining. She quickly put the mop back and took my hand．As we turned to go out of the door, Mum nodded politely to the nurse and said, “Thank you.”

　　 Outside, Mum told me: “Dagmar is fine. No fever.”

　　 “You saw her, Mum?”

　　 “Of course. I told her about the hospital rules, and she will not expect us until tomorrow. Dad will stop worrying as well. It’s a fine hospital. But such floors! A mop is no good．You need a brush.”

1. When she took a mop from the small room what Mum really wanted to do was ________.

A．to clean the floor

B．to please the nurse

C．to see a patient

D．to surprise the story- teller

2. When the nurse talked to Mum she thought Mum was a ________.

A．nurse

B．visitor

C．patient

D．cleaner

3. After reading the story what can we infer about the hospital?

A．It is a children’s hospital.

B．It has strict rules about visiting hours.

C．The nurses and doctors there don’t work hard.

D．A lot of patients come to this hospital every day.

4. Why di
n


 iX?
x

ill happen?

A．A twister will find its way to China.

B．The audience will sing high raise for the film.

C．Many Chinese people suffering from the floods will feel thankful to the CFEIC.

D．More box offices will be set up.

A．To give her some message about Dad.

B．To make sure her room was clean.

C．To check that she was still there.

D．To find out how she was.

5. Which of the following words best describes Mum?

A．polite

B．patient

C．changeable

D．clever

There are various reasons why cancers appear to be on the increase. For one thing, though their sufferers are to be found in all age groups, cancers are particularly likely to attack persons in their middle and advanced years. Naturally, since people live longer these years, there are more cancer sufferers than before. Again, with better methods of diagnosis (診斷), doctors can more easily recog??nize cancerous growths that would formerly have passed unnoticed or that would have been wrongly di??agnosed. It is also believed that certain habits and conditions of modem living, including heavy smok??ing and the pollution of the air, may leave people living in more cancer-causing conditions than before.

We all look forward to the day when a simple medical test can find cancer while it is still small. Researchers around the world are working on such a test. Most of their work deals with the examina??tion of the blood.

Researchers in Boston have found something in the blood of cancer patients that does not appear in healthy persons. The test showed which persons had cancer and which did not. It was correct more than 90 percent of the time.

The researchers believe the test may be able to show cancer very clearly in its development. Cancers discovered early usually can be treated successfully.

The test examines very small bits of fat in the blood called lipids (脂質). Cancers seem to change lipids although doctors do not know why. The test showed differences between the lipids of the persons with cancer and the lipids of those without cancer.

The researchers say the new test could be a step to develop a simple way to check patients for cancer before the disease shows on an X-ray.

1. Who will fail cancer from the study of the researchers?

A. The young.                           B. The middle age and the older.

C. The man.                                    D. The woman.

2. The underlined words "such a test" refer to________.

A. the test that shows which persons have cancer and which don’t     .

B. the test that may be able to show cancer very early in its development,.

C. a simple medical test that cannot find cancer when it is -small

D. a new test that could be a step to develop a difficult way

3. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A. Cancers have much to do with something in patients’ blood.

B. People living in better conditions are most likely to be attacked by cancer.

C.X-raying is the best way to determined whether a person has cancer or not.

D. Cancers have nothing to do with a person’s habits and living conditions.

4. What would be the best title for the passage?

A. A simple way to cancer                 B. Cancers can be cured

C. How to find cancer                            D. Early discovery of cancer

D
I entered high school having read hundreds of books. But I was not a good reader. Merely bookish, I lacked a point of view when I read. Rather, I read in order to get a point of view. I searched books for good expressions and sayings, pieces of information, ideas, themes—anything to enrich my thought and make me feel educated. When one of my teachers suggested to his sleepy tenth-grade English class that a person could not have a “complicated idea” until he had read at least two thousand books, I heard the words without recognizing either its irony (嘲諷) or its very complicated truth. I merely determined to make a list of all the books I had ever read. Strict with myself, I included only once a title I might have read several times. (How, after all, could one read a book more than once?) And I included only those books over a hundred pages in length. (Could anything shorter be a book?)
There was yet another high school list I made. One day I came across a newspaper article about an English professor at a nearby state college. The article had a list of the “hundred most important books of Western Civilization.” “More than anything else in my life,” the professor told the reporter with finality(firmly) , “these books have made me all that I am.” That was the kind of words I couldn’t ignore. I kept the list for the several months it took me to read all of the titles. Most books, of course, I hardly understood. While reading Plato's The Republic, for example, I needed to keep looking at the introduction of the book to remind myself what the text was about. However, with the special patience and superstition (迷信) of a schoolboy, I looked at every word of the text. And by the time I reached the last word, pleased, I persuaded myself that I had read The Republic, and seriously crossed Plato off my list
68. On hearing the teacher's suggestion of reading, the writer thought _______.
A. one must read as many books as possible
B. a student should not have a complicated idea
C. it was impossible for one to read two thousand books
D. students ought to make a list of the books they had read
69. While at high school, the writer _______.
A. had plans for reading                               B. learned to educate himself
C. only read books over 100 pages                D. read only one book several times
70. The writer's purpose in mentioning The Republic is to _______.
A. explain why it was included in the list
B. describe why he seriously crossed it off the list
C. show that he read the books blindly though they were hard to understand
D. prove that he understood most of it because he had looked at every word
71 The writer provides two book lists to _______.
A. show how he developed his point of view
B. tell his reading experience at high school
C. introduce the two persons' reading methods
D. explain that he read many books at high school

US researchers have found traces of an ancient lake on Mars recently, increasing hopes of discovering evidence that billions of years ago the Red planet hosted life.

    The lake, which dates back some 3.4 billion years, appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep, said the team from the University of Colorado.

    “This is the first clear evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars,”said Boulder’ s research associate, Gaetano Di Achille, in a study published in the latest edition of Geophysical Research Letters.

   “The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago.”

   Analysis of the images has shown the water carved out the canyon (溪谷) in which it was found, which then opened out into a valley depositing (使淤積) sediment (沉積) which formed a delta (三角洲).

  “Finding shorelines is a great discovery to us,” said assistant professor Brian Hynek, adding it showed the lake existed at a time when Mars was thought to have been cold and dry.

    Scientists believe the oldest surfaces on Mars formed during the wet and warm era known as the Noachan epoch, about 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago.

The newly discovered lake is believed to date from the Hesperian era and postdates the end of the warm and wet period on Mars by 300 million years, according to the study.

 Scientists believe deltas next to the lake may well hold secrets about past life on Mars as such places on Earth have become the natural deposits of organic carbon and other markers of life.

1.The size of the lake found on Mars is ______.

A. 80 square miles                  B. 1,500 square miles

C. 3.4 billion square miles             D. 300 million square miles

2.When the lake existed, the weather on Mars was ____.

A. hot and wet      B. wet and warm         C. cold and dry     D. cold and wet

3.Why do scientists think deltas near the lake may hold secrets about past life on Mars?

A. Because similar places on Earth have become natural deposits of markers of life.

B. Because someone has put secrets about past life on Mars there.

C. Because past life has been found in other deltas on Mars.

D. Because some people are said to have already seen life marks there.

4.Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?

A. The Noachan epoch was a wet and warm era.

B. The lake might have existed 3.4 billion years.

C. The discovery can’ t fully prove that the Mars once hosted life.

D. The lake traces prove that there exists life on Mars now.

I HEAR America beeping(嘟嘟響)．

 Beep，says my cellophane when it gets a text message．

  Beep，says my microwave oven when my sandwich  is warmed up． 

 Sometimes  I long for a natural sound：a bird singing，dog barking，children laughing， anything to drown out  the maddening beeps that have become the soundtrack(配樂)to modern life．

  My cellophane? It isn’t enough that its ring tone offerings seem to stretch from  “annoymg” toextremely “annoying”． It also has to beep whenever someone texts messages me． 

The microwave? A bell rings when it's finished heating my food．But is that enough? No．If I don’t rush to it right away, it starts beeping，like an impatient child tugging(用力拉) at my sleeve(袖子)．

 The smoke detector(探測器) is the worst offender．When its batteries are in need of replacement，it 1ets out a series of chirps．The things that don’t beep buzz(嗡嗡響)．And for some reason，beeping and buzzing is beneath them，they clear their throats and perform a symphony． Like my TV, each time I turn it on, it performs an aria(詠嘆調)：La di da di dum．Salutions! Here I am! Same thing when I turn it off: La di da di dum．Good bye, kind sir! Until the next time

But at 1east I know where each of these sounds is coming from．That isn’t always the case．For weeks, my wife and I were awoken in the night by a beeping．There，in the stillness， we went through the possible suspects．Could we have a text message? Could it be any of the devices(裝置)able to make a sound? Curling iron, rice cooker, smoke detector, TV set，clock radio．．．

The only way to tell was to chase the sound down ，but no sooner  would we pull on our bathrobes than the beeping would stop. We didn’t hear it every night but often enough that we would climb into bed wondering whether our sleep  would be interrupted by that maddening sound，that beep．

  Finally,early one morning，my wife found it：in the study,under a desk，a big plastic cube that was plugged into the wall．It was an uninterruptible power supply that we’d inherited(繼承)from my wife’s mother．We’d never known it was capable of speech． 

I think it just wanted someone to talk to.

14．What does the writer truly mean by saying“I hear America beeping”?

A．American people like devices that beep．

B．Americans are crazy about sending text messages．

C．In modern society people are dependant on technology．

D．The soundtrack to modern life is no longer natural．

15．Why couldn’t the author and his wife find the source of the noise in their house in the beginning?

A．There were too many devices for them to check．

B．They were unwilling to get up at midnight．

C．They had never known that thing could beep too．

D．The noise didn’t come every day．

16．After reading this passage，we can probably tell the author    ．

   A．enjoys being surrounded by beeps  B．has a touch of humor in his writing

C．tries to avoid using anything that beeps

D．understands the beeping is designed to be user-friendly